Part IIn a 1930 sound version of Alraune (The Daughter of Evil), (I)directed by Robert Oswald and starring Brigitte Helm as its main character, a scientist decides to create a human being by the means of artificial insemination. First tempting and succeeding his experiment on rats, he finally achieves his aim using the seed of a hanged man impregnated into a prostitute who conveniently dies shortly after the birth. The ‘product’ engendered is a fascinating young woman who provokes the death of all the men she meets. Fifty years later, in 1970, scientists accomplish the synthesis of the first artificial gene and in 1971, artificial procreation makes its way through the first replacement of in-vitro fertilised embryos into their mothers, yet without successful pregnancies established. It will take several unsuccessful attempts (including the first woman implanted with an in vitro fertilised embryo to become clinically pregnant but who had to abort before term in 1976) to finally reach a still unstable scientific reality. In Metropolis (1926, Fritz Lang), an evil scientist named Rotwang kidnaps Maria, an outspoken woman of the working class, under the orders of Jon Frederson, master of the town who wants to gain control of the working class. First intending to create the robot similar to his dead wife, Hel who abandoned him for Fredersen and died giving birth to his son, Rotwang is convinced by Frederson to design the robot to replicate Maria. As explains Frederson to Rotwang: « Make your robot in the likeness of that girl. I will send the robot down to the workers, to sow discord among them and destroy their confidence in Maria ». The false Maria named Futura (played by the fascinating Brigitte Helm again), who uses her face to deceive people, will then introduce chaos into the world of the workers. In 1948, American Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) will use the concept of “cybernetics” in order to define the control and communication in the animal and the machine. His concept will lead to first experiments in 1948 and 1952, helping the development of robotics, automatization and artificial intelligence. If anthropomorphized robots or androids are still a highly utopian product, the first industrialized robot will be engineered by Unimotion for General Motors at the beginning of the 1960s. The idea of Virtual Reality and transfer of identity will emerge effectively in the second half of the 20th century; in 1965, Ivan Sutherland creates the first system of stereoscopic visualization called “Epée de Damoclès” with which one can get ‘inside’ the image. At the end of the 1980s, the first cybergloves and helmets will be commercialized by a Californian firm (Visual Programming Language), generalizing the process of transferred identities in the realm of games. Even if there are plenty of other cases in literature and films, and although the two films have different aesthetics and ideological perspectives, these two specific examples of prefigured scientific realities and imageries resemble each other in the fact that they are amazingly (and frightfully) accurate and visionary when they describe scientific probabilities (or improbabilities) turned real. The avant-gardiste impulse at the basis of these films is only one part of their discourse. What is most striking is the tension between the futuristic images or ideas and the undercurrent archaism of the films which betrays the ancestral fear of “playing God” by creating human beings and shows that technology is considered as ‘something wrong’.Alraune and Metropolis undoubtedly reflect the era’s conceptions about science. The two films were deeply rooted in a specific sociological and scientific context, mainly displaying conservatism and even misogyny. Oswald’s film was based on a novel written by Hans Hein Ewers, called Alraune, die Geschiste einer lebenden wesens and it was clearly established that Thea Von Harbou, if she wrote the plot of Metropolis, was inspired by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s L’Eve Future (1900) and Karel Copek’s R.U.R. (The Universal robots of Rossum) (1920) in which he invented the word “robot”.(II)These literary sources played on the same technological/occult duality. Ewers (1871-1943)(III)wrote a trilogy (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in 1907, Alraune in 1911 and Vampir in 1921) about Frank Braun, incarnation of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, who lives his life in violation of the social codes of society. At the basis of the second part of the trilogy, the Mandragora officinarum, a poisonous plant of the tomato family, having roots often bifurcated and in the form of a human torso (so its use in the occult endeavours of making Golems). It is said that when a male criminal is hung and his neck broken, he will generally ejaculate. It was long believed that where the semen dripped to the ground a Mandrake plant grew. This kind of literature easily joins the end of the previous century’s ‘pseudo scientific’ spirit. For instance, Ewers’s ideas meet the treatises of Italian Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) who studied mental diseases and human physiognomy, establishing that criminals had certain ‘types’ and were victims of a hereditary anomalia (in Genious and Madness in 1864, The criminal man in 1975 and The Female Offender in 1893), and whose theories will soon be used in the ethnic campaigns of German nationalists.In L’Eve Future, De L’Isle-Adam seems to give a more contemporary image of possible human creation, based on the magic of electricity. Von Harbou was more probably influenced by the pages in which the author describes how the robot is created: “Villiers’ description of the creation of his female android Hadaly portrays Edison employing his motion picture device, the “cylinder of movements”, to transfer the gestures of the model to her simulacrum”. (IV)Yet the striking misogyny of the book is fully displayed when the reasons why the robot is created are described by Edison himself: the original woman has been judged as imperfect, she must be replaced by a more convenient “angel in the house”.

 

Part IIThe use of these challenging inventions may appear to be the main issue of the films’ plot, yet they tend, by the use of archaic elements and themes, a moralizing narrative structure and archetypal characters, to undermine or overtly criticize the danger they represent.In Alraune, the imagery used by Oswald in his presentation of the scientist’s desk perfectly captures the dual discourse, showing in the same frame a book of scientific formulae and a morbid human skull placed in a room decorated with gigantic demon sculptures. But, beyond these visual details, archaism is evidently dependant of the superstitious folklore at the core of the book. In one of the first sequences of the film, Professor Ten Bricken celebrates his success with his nephew, Frank Braun. During the toast, a vase is broken by a root of mandrake. Without going into the scabrous details described by Ewers in his novel, Ten Brinken explains the superstitious value of the plant and that according to the legend, when a hanged man lets a last “breath” escape, the earth absorbs his last “strengths” and from the association of man and earth comes the roots of the ‘alraune’. If the spectator may think that the professor’s explanations can be viewed as symbolic material, it is quickly denied when the scientist explains in a long and very serious speech that mandrake is the basic element of his experiments, allowing him to succeed in creating his laboratory rats and soon, a human being.Fritz Lang described to Peter Bogdanovich his own film as “a battle between modern science and occultism, the science of the medieval age”.(V)The references to biblical themes and archaic legends in the visual and thematic composition of Metropolis have been largely studied by film historians and theorists. But let us remember a few, which illustrate Lang’s own words: the recurrent use of the Babylonian imagery (for the Gardens of Yoshiwara) and of the symbolic Tower of Babel, the constant assimilation of the central machine and cannibalistic god Moloch, the association of Rotwang with medieval surroundings and magic turning him into a sorcerer rather than a scientist, etc. Besides, just like Ten Brinken’s experiments are based on folklore and we never actually see him perform any scientific act, the process by which Futura is created is more related to magic than to any real scientific act, “imagistic and metaphoric rather than technological” as Tom Gunning would put it.(VI)

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Considering the patriarchal narratives on which they are based, it is no surprise then that the conflict between archaism and future is cristallized by the feminine characters in these films. Reflecting at the same time the fear of technological progress and the fascination for new discoveries, the false Maria/Futura and Alraune are the perfect illustrations of the era’s ambiguous position. Beyond the fact that they are artificially created creatures, the Futura and Alraune characters are seen as visual constructions based on the need to create the ‘perfect beings’ and to denounce woman as ‘artifice’.(VII)The idea of producing ‘perfect’ doubles of existing human beings supports the creating process in both Metropolis and Alraune. One should understand the term ‘perfect’ according to the patriarchal conceptions about women: submissive creatures belonging and devoted to their creators who also satisfy their uttermost plastic fantasies. Contrary to the original idea of the term ‘robot’ (coming from Karel Copek’s robotnik and meaning ‘slave’), Futura is an active and highly sexualized figure, the ultimate male fantasy. But if the false Maria and Alraune are their creators’ fantasy, they also associate the ‘technological’ or scientific device they are with the dangers of female sexuality.(VIII)What was most important was to create beings that could be controlled by their creators whatever the means – this perspective failing, especially in Metropolis.Another aspect of archaism is the use of two feminine archetypes – the good woman and the evil one. In Metropolis, the two figures are clearly separated: humanity is unfailingly a symbol of what is good and right (the sweet Maria, associated by her name to the Virgin Mary, surrounded by children and fighting for Justice), as opposed to the technological creature who can only offer the frightening face of sexuality and death (Futura, an evil creature who bursts into incontrollable fists of hysteria). In Alraune, Alma Raune (played by Brigitte Helm again), the biological mother discovered by Frank in a nightclub, is undoubtedly the perfect representation of feminine evil; dancer and singer (which implies that she also may be a prostitute), she smokes, she drinks and has no morals as she explains in a song (“When a man cheats on me, I don’t care, I look for another”). But the character of Alraune herself is far more interesting and complex, announcing a more modern perspective by gathering both paradoxical aspects in only one character. If Alma is evil incarnated, Alraune is double, both the evil temptress in the first half of the film, and then the sacrificial woman who, in order to save her lover from the danger she represents, prefers to drown. We should underlie the difference with the book where Alraune dies accidentally.Beyond this well-known dichotomy of the female figure, archaism is also developed through the presence of mythic elements in their visual construction. It is especially the case in Metropolis with the pagan dance or, more accurately, the “totendanz”. Once again, the association between archaism, technology and evil is clearly articulated through the feminine character. In this sequence where Frederson’s son imagines the false Maria dancing for a crowd of fascinated wealthy men, the mythical elements perfectly show how dangerous the creature has become. The mise en scène of the pagan dance, the counter-shot and the luminous halo/glow displaying her in all her power of attraction, all these elements tend to conceive Futura not as a robot but as a goddess who controls the male gaze and mind. What I meant by using the term ‘misconceptions’ in the title of this paper is clearly illustrated here through the fact that Futura is finally not pictured as a futuristic robot but more as an archaic evil figure, a goddess or a mythic representation belonging to the past.Similar scenes of ‘medusation’ are present in Alraune. In the beginning of the second half of the film, before we actually see Alraune, the driver explains to his wife that he is incapable of saying no to her whims. She decides that they have to go in order to save her marriage and her husband, knowing that Alraune plays with men like dolls; even if Alraune accepts the demission, when she appears before the driver, his eyes are glued to her and he cannot refuse a last lethal drive. The impact of her gaze on men is clearly illustrated by her visual introduction to the screen: she is first seen in a chair, her back to the spectator, playing with a doll, preventing the young Wolfgang Petersen to study. Even the scientist understands her lethal power of attraction by putting the names of her victims in his notebook before committing suicide.The narrative formulas and melodramatic scenarios applied to these figures confirm the need to cling to conservative and moralizing conceptions, preferring self-sacrifices as signs of redemption or provoked death as moral punishment. When Alraune learns about her past through the discovery of the professor’s book where she reads the names of her victims, she hides with her hand the name of her beloved Frank, and frightened that anything might happen to him, decides, at night, to leave their home and to disappear into the sea. In one of the last scenes of Metropolis, Futura is finally burned at the stake like a witch and her alluring human features melt to give way to her technological and original face: as we could have forgotten “Beneath the whore of Babylon runs the Mechanism of Modernity”.(IX)

 

EpilogueEven if a negative opinion on possible scientific devices is clearly imposed in these two films, one should also consider other and more positive impacts. It is obvious, even without any scientific knowledge, that we can find current traces of the technological devices displayed in the film, but what is even more striking is the influence they had on cinematographic cyber imagery. What is interesting is the fact that this kind of imagery has been actualized not so much in reality (maybe in virtual games) but primarily in films.

Sexualized robots (Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell), virtual transfer (we can find practically the same images of a woman lying on a table/in a chair, electrodes plugged into her helmet and related to the machine in Mamoru Oshii’s Avalon and Luc Besson’s Fifth Element), mythical value of the artificially constructed characters are to be found again on our screens. The idea of recycling some of the images conveyed in Metropolis and Alraune can be seen under negative as well as positive aspects.

The influence is revealed not only on the basis of the imagery but also on the ideological ground by the fact that some of the misogynic aspects are still in use. ‘Unfortunately’, satisfaction of male fantasy will remain one of the main aspects of creating feminine cyborgs, androids or robots: beyond examples like Lara Croft (Simon West), Thomas est amoureux (Pierre-Paul Renders) where the cyberprostitute Clara clearly incarnates his sexual fantasy, a film like SimOne (Andrew Nichols), where the creature is virtually composed by Al Pacino and becomes his ‘plaything’ for the world to see, clearly conveys ideas presented nearly a century earlier by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and later by Lang .(X)

But pure imagery is not all. If filmic representations of female robots have been based on their evil implications for a long time (I think about examples like the characters of Rachel (Sean Young) and Priss (Darryl Hannah) in Blade Runner), recent virtual/cyber heroines defy dualism. The Good woman and bad Woman are no more two separated figures (like in Metropolis) but complex and binary characters like the one we found in Alraune. In The Cell (Tarsem Singh), the heroine must drown the killer in order to save his soul; in Final Fantasy (Hironobu Sakagushi), Aki is a doctor and the conveyor of the evil spirit/death (hence the title « the spirits within »); even Lara Croft incarnates a new vision of death and the maiden symbolized by her “belt with a skull”; finally Ellen Ripley is the death and the maiden because she was genetically reborn from the ashes of her ancestor (hence the dialogue: « What did you do ? » « I died »).

Donna Haraway’s famous sentence (I rather be a cyborg than a goddess) is proven obsolete by the current filmic examples which clearly assume their Metropolis heritage by transforming the cyber heroines into goddesses. If mythical elements are still used, they now tend to maximize the characters’ complexity, refusing to freeze them in rigid conceptions; in The Matrix, Trinity first bears the mythical background in her name and is both a motherly figure and an action hero; Allegra Galler in eXistenZ is “the world’s greatest game designer and gamepad goddess” and “the demoness” who must be killed. In a reversal of logic, the complexity of the technological characters (robots, androids, virtual characters) helps to promote the discourse on new scientific devices; in these films, technological progress is no more put in question or feared and new creatures can be created, even in cinematographic material.

 

Notes1. The first adaptation of Ewers’s novel, Alraune. Die Henkerstochter, Genannt die Rote Hanne, now lost, was produced by the German studio Neutrat Film and released in 1918, and directed by Eugen Illes (Hilde Wolter played Alraune). A second version, lost as well, directed by Mihaly Kertesz (later known as Michael Curtiz), was produced in Hungary and also released in 1918 (with Margit Lux as Alraune).
Alraune (a.k.a. Unholy Love or Daughter of Destiny) was produced by the AMA Film studios at the very end of 1927 and directed by Heinrich Galeen (director of Der Student von Prag, based on a screenplay by Ewers himself). Professor Ten Brinken was played by Paul Wegener (Der Golem) and Alraune by Brigitte Helm. After Oswald’s UFA production, another West German version was produced in 1952 (Alraune, a.k.a. Unnatural, a.k.a. Vengeance, a.k.a. Mandragore), produced by the Carlton studios, and directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt, famous for his Nazi propaganda films. Hildegard Knef played Alraune and Erich von Stroheim, played Ten Brinken.
2. Hans Hein Ewers, Alraune, die Geschichte einer lebenden wesens, Munich: Georg Mueller, 1911; New York: Arno Press, 1976; Paris: Christian Bourgeois Editeur, 1970/1988, published in French under the title Mandragore). For discussion of the influences, see Tom Gunning, p.55 & 65.
3. Ewers was a known and fervent nationalist involved in the Nazi movement from the early twenties but will later be rejected by the Nazis authorities because of his « satanic ideas ». His book will be banned by the regime and reduced to poverty, he will die of tuberculosis in 1943.
4. Tom Gunning, The films of Fritz Lang – Allegories of Vision and Modernity, BFI, 2000, p.67.
5. Peter Bogdanovich, Fritz Lang in America, p.124.
6. Op.cit., p.67.
7. These facts are deeply rooted in two main literary influences : both Hadaly in L’Eve future (Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, 1900), and La Stilla in Le château des carpates (Jules Verne - 1899) are reconstructed characters due to interesting « tricks » close to cinematographic representations (essentially holograms or pre-robots moved with the help of electricity), these mechanical brides are verisimilar copies of the original human beings who have been judged as ‘imperfect’ (for Hadaly) or who are dead (in the case of La Stilla).
8. According to Gunning again, « It is not simply that the false Maria figures the feminine as technological she also embodies sexuality itself” (op.cit., p.81). 9. Gunning, op.cit., p.81.
10. We can here notice the evolution of these feminine characters from relatively asexual heroines (in Blade Runner or even Sigourney Weaver in Alien) to excessively feminine characters (Jessica Rabbit, Clara, and even more clearly Lara Croft).